This beauty...
This still water...
I was struck by this setting this past weekend as Stan and I traveled to be witnesses to a beautiful union of marriage between two of our dear friends.
We were still. We had no televisions in our rooms. Wifi was spotty at best.
Sometimes, it takes no choice but to look to God to find him.
The story of Martha and Mary from the bible has always resonated with me. Unfortunately for my soul, I am a Martha. I readily acknowledge this fact and know that "Mary chose better..." but I almost just cannot help myself but to prepare, to straighten, to cross every I and dot every T.
I have started to recognize, however, that the more I do...the more I am drawn to do even more. It is a type of anxiety that I have to believe has a lot to do with the technologically availability of well...everything. I can check my home email, my work email, my work computer record system, facebook, receive a text and cook dinner all with in the same 10 minute span. I just feed off of that completion of one cycle after another...and it continues...and continues...until I crash in my bed at night. Exhausted. Overworked. Spent.
I wake in the morning feeling anything but restored.
What am I doing, this crazy burning my candle to the wick on more than both ends? Work at home, Work at work, Work with the kids, Work with Stan, Work on the house...No rest, no quiet waters, no peace in sight. I feel so out of control.
It is because I am.
"We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you." - Psalm 33:20-22
"Holy unhurry flourishes in a heart full of hope. It's opposite- hopelessness- can cause us to be driven, anxious and frantic." - Alan Falding
Friends, this is where I have been. Hopeless of anything different than my current break neck speed. After all, almost all things that are causing me to exist this way are good things...necessary things...I think...
As I reflected on Psalm 23 while at Lake Junaluska, I felt the Lord saying to me, "Still. Be still. Still waters, I am leading you beside still waters" as I went for a jog around the lake. As I ran, I breathed in peace as my mind was cleared of worry and hurry. I had the whole morning unexpectedly to myself. I communed with the Lord, reading his word, enjoying his creation, listening to worship hymns. I had nothing clamoring for my attention. I allowed nothing else in. That is the way to restoration.
I have been reading a book called, "An Unhurried Life." One particularly striking chapter discussed the temptation of Jesus by Satan and how each temptation was a picture of hurry, of immediate gratification, of grabbing for the taking NOW. First, Satan says, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread..." Alan Falding suggests that Satan was tempting Jesus (us) to run ahead of God here, not waiting for his timing and instead taking what he needed NOW. I mean how could he survive without bread? Jesus relied, "Man shall not live on bread alone." Bam. Take that Satan. How might I respond though?
Alan Falding goes on to talk about how compulsion and addictive living allows no time between impulse and action...
How I fully understand this parallel!!! No time between impulse and action! Working and living with kids, I see this all the time! How frustrating this is to me, but oh so so so parallel to my wanting to know how things are going to work out NOW, so I just keep working, keep striving, keep answering texts and emails immediately- because the world might stop if I don't! What?
Of course, Jesus could have turned that stone into bread, but that was not the Father's will. Jesus knew the Father...and how did he know him so well? He spent time getting to know him. He spent quiet time beside still waters. How thankful I am that He is my example.
Another wrestling of my heart in this book has been around the small part so far about watching "people succeed in evil ways..."
I struggle with seeing people who I do not respect succeed, and even tell me how I should strive to succeed in their ways. Alan Falding remarked, "Anger rushes us to judgment and perhaps to vengeance. Anger is soul hurry. Peace is soul unhurried and at rest."
"Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness." Luke 11:34-35
Satan tempts me here, to think bad thoughts about such people. When I can view this as soul hurry, of not trusting that God has my best in store, regardless of whether certain people succeed with their evil ways, it puts a whole different spin on how I can view this type of hurt.
I am learning that while there are preparations that have to be made in this life with three young children, a husband and a part time job, "doing something good for him should not take precedence over listening to something good from him".
The key to an unhurried life is more time spent with Jesus. This is hard. But, this is what was different about Jesus. And, he was unhurried. He knew that God's timing was best and because he knew God so well, he trusted him way more than I do. He withdrew from people (a hard thing for an extrovert to do) and he sat beside still waters, he prayed all night, he sent his disciples away so he could commune with God.
What a journey this life is. I think Jesus is calling me to take time to smell the roses, to travel at a slow walking pace so that I can hear him, then I can see him, I can learn from him and we can trust that he knows best. Ah, what freedom. What restoring occurs when I can unplug from the world and plug into God.
Praying for daily reminders of His presence for each of you, daily whispers of gratitude, daily visions of still water, still water with peace-filled swans slowly paddling, swans who God cares for their every need, just one day at a time, just like he does for each of us.
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